Tom Senior M1 chuck & collets

[Jim TrevaskisParticipant @jimtrevaskis92503]

Can anyone with a Senior M1 point me in the right direction for a suitable type of chuck and collets for a spindle driven vertical attach.

 I’m also chasing a division ring for  the vert. attach.and a ball handle for the

same     I  would be most grateful for any help .

                        Jim. 

[Jim TrevaskisParticipant @jimtrevaskis92503]

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Well if you are talking about what’s known as the ‘knuckle’ head, then most (all?) of them have an MT2 taper. Originally they were fitted with a Clarkson collet system, but it’s quite possible (and rather more flexible) to fit an ER32 collet chuck – you’ll just have to make yourself a suitable length drawbar to hold it in place.

 

As for ball handles for the division ring – I’ve never seen them fitted. The ring is attached to the body of the mill with three hex-socket bolts, and the division ring is held in place with two nuts and bolts. There isn’t room to swing ball-handled nuts around unless you used the ‘releasable’ ones, and I’m not at all convinced that you could clamp them with what I would regard as sufficient force to hold the head adequately anyway. Mine is currently in bits awaiting a fix, which hopefully I’ll be able to make a start on in a couple of weeks. This is what the driven shaft looks like inside:

 

 

Edited By Steve Garnett on 10/10/2010 10:10:16

[Jim TrevaskisParticipant @jimtrevaskis92503]

Thanks Steve an ER 32 it is then, with regards to the ball handle I guess I didn’t make it too clear that it’s for the table , the original has been replaced with a wheel and I don’t like it.

            Jim.

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Ah, I see. The only handles that seem to be easily available for purchase are the Arc Euro Trade ones, and I don’t think that they are as large as the originals. Might be worth trying some of the places that have supplied TS’s over the years, such as Home and Workshop Machinery to see if they have any from machines that have been broken up. Other than that, try placing wanted ads here, and on the Home Workshop site – you never know. Also there’s a Yahoo group that might be worth joining, if you haven’t already.

Edited By Steve Garnett on 10/10/2010 12:44:33

[Jim TrevaskisParticipant @jimtrevaskis92503]

Thanks again Steve ,I’ll try Home/w/shop , I think the division ring is going to be the difficult one , if all else fails I will have to impose on the members good nature to supply the dimensions and maybe a couple of pics. so that my mentor can machine one , relax Charles it’s not you.

                       Jim. 

                                    

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Chances of finding the division ring without the rest of the knuckle head? Closely approaching zero, and probably from the minus side!

 

Pix and dimensions will be relatively easy though – since mine is currently in bits, the division ring is sitting there in all its glory in an easy measuring state – I’ll see what I can do, but you may have to wait a few days. And that’s a fair old chunk of metal there; it has to be, otherwise you lose some Y extension when you crank the table in and out. It’s nearly 6 1/2″ diameter, and 1 1/2″ thick, with an interesting exercise in rotary T slot cutting thrown in. Yes, you are going to need a T slot cutter, and a rotary table. Due to the physical integrity of the original design, you couldn’t easily make this up in layers, either.

 

I would have thought that a cast iron blank, suitably oversized, would be the thing to go for.

[Jim TrevaskisParticipant @jimtrevaskis92503]

Thanks once again Steve , I have spoken to the resident smarty who has a light industrial

          workshop and he doesn’t see a problem making a division ring.

          I have shown him the rather poor images I have of one mounted so when you find                   time to forward some dimensions I will pass them on and with a bit of luck

                a suitable part can be made.

              Thanks  Steve with best wishes

                              Jim.

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

I’m not familiar with the particular part, but circular T slots can be cut in the lathe. The main advantage of course is the cheaper tooling, some HSS brazed into a steel shank instead of a dedicated T slot cutter, and also no need for a rotary table. I have done one onto a flat face for a swivelling vice base, but you could also do one around either the outside or even the inside of a cylindrical surface if that was the requirement. You cut the initial groove with a parting or trepanning blade, then use left and right handed cutters to cut the arms of the T.  This method also means that you don’t need a clearance hole to get the cutter in, as you would with a milling cutter. You do eventually need a hole to get the T nuts in, but with my vice one that comes in from the back, so the slot is uninterrupted from the working side.

 

There is of course a limit to how wide the arms of the T can be, the longer the cutter part is the narrower the support steel has to be. Typically half the slot width for each works fine.

 

regards

John

 

 

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Well I’ve looked at it, and that approach would probably work fine. It’s not so easy to tell what they did originally, because the tooling marks remaining can only really be described as weird. But the bit of slot you can see from the rear looks pretty clean, and the hole in the back for getting the tee nuts in is certainly large enough for a tee cutter – well I suppose it had to be, really!

The other thing I forgot to mention earlier is that of course, the tee nuts are curved…

[VersabossParticipant @versaboss]

Inquiring minds, you know….

I have never seen a vertical mill with a division ring on the spindle. What’s the use of that?

On a lathe spindle yes, convenient when you have a topslide-mounted drilling spindle.

Or do you mean something completely different, like e.g. the angle-setting scale ?

Well, not sure if this sentence correctly expresses what I want to say, and this scale usually is not related to the spindle. But the concentrated knowledge here will put matters right I think.

Greetings, Hansrudolf

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Posted by Versaboss on 12/10/2010 22:33:31:

I have never seen a vertical mill with a division ring on the spindle. What’s the use of that?

On a lathe spindle yes, convenient when you have a topslide-mounted drilling spindle.

Or do you mean something completely different, like e.g. the angle-setting scale ?

 I must admit that I had assumed that Jim was talking about the only part of a knuckle head that had any form of calibrated indication on it at all, and you are quite correct to say that it isn’t actually a division ring but it most certainly is an angle-setting scale – of sorts.

 

And as such it’s pretty much useless. You can’t use it as anything more than an approximation to when the head’s vertical for tramming purposes – and most people could spot that easily without a mark, I think. And similarly, you couldn’t set up an angle on it accurately either; if you really wanted to do that you’d be much better off measuring this directly using the table as a reference point. So I was going to tentatively suggest leaving the calibration off anyway, and persuading Jim to have a go at making Bogstandard’s excellent tramming tool. I think that this would be a rather more valuable exercise than putting calibrations on the mounting ring, and certainly lead to more satisfactory results!

Edited By Steve Garnett on 13/10/2010 01:08:55

[Jim TrevaskisParticipant @jimtrevaskis92503]

Thanks Lads , quoting from a copy of Instruction Manual for “Senior” Milling Machines

” Securely mount the vertical head division ring with 3 socket head cap screws and mount the vertical head onto the ring with 2 tee bolts. mind you the instructions were downloaded from something called Poison Gully .

 A little background may help, this particular machine sat idle for some 12 years after being purchased by the previous owner ,he planned to restore it then put it to work on various steam projects , unfortunately he died so rather than see it maybe deteriorate

 beyond redemption I bought it with the view to bring it back to as near  original as possible hence the division ring. My main interest modelling wise is control line aircraft

 and vintage tether cars so the mill will be put to good use on light applications.My only concern is the bloody thing might be cursed .

 I shall follow up on the suggestion of the Tramming tool for which I most grateful,but the ring is still on the must have list.

       Thanks once again Lads i appreciate your input

         Best wishes

                     Jim.

        

 

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Drawing in progress. Meanwhile, does the M1 have a serial number on the vertical surface, just above where the ring mounts on the front, and probably on the RHS? We can date it from that, but I don’t know of any Mill exorcists, I’m afraid… unless I’m one!

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Okay, I now have a drawing which is probably good enough to make one from, and I’ll take a couple of piccies of it as well tomorrow (especially the Tee nut) and post those in the TS album I’ve already started. If you drop me a private message with an email address, I’ll send you the pdf of the Solid Edge draft of it, which seems to work quite well. There is, of course, no facility to do that here…

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Front View

 

Rear View showing Tee nut entry point

 

Fixing hardware – Tee nut is turned from 1″ bar and the end is shaped to the slot. All threads are 3/8″ Whitworth, although 3/8″ UNC will do fine. These aren’t on the drawing, because there’s enough info here, I think.
 

 

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Well, Jim now has a drawing which he says is understandable and clear (phew!), so with a bit of effort on his mentor’s part he should be able to create one of these for himself, I hope. And hopefully I’ll be able to put mine back together soon, although I still have to do the mod to the driven shaft to enable adjustable preload, rather than have to rely on shimming it.

 

Oh, and Jim did provide a serial number for what he thought was a fairly old machine – but it’s seven years younger than mine…

Edited By Steve Garnett on 17/10/2010 11:23:49

[Jim TrevaskisParticipant @jimtrevaskis92503]

My most grateful thanks to Steve for his pics. and outstanding drawings of the parts

      which moves me ever closer to” power on”, I would also like to thank this site for  the     

     Forums that make a world of difference to a beginner.

      Best wishes and regards to all

                   Jim.

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